Captain America

The Star-spangled Avenger Adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Captain America first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 (Cover dated March 1941), from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. For nearly all of the character's publication history, Captain America was the alter ego of Steve Rogers , a frail young man who was enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental serum in order to aid the United States war effort. Captain America wears a costume that bears an American flag motif, and is armed with an indestructible shield that can be thrown as a weapon. An intentionally patriotic creation who was often depicted fighting the Axis powers. Captain America was Timely Comics' most popular character during the wartime period. After the war ended, the character's popularity waned and he disappeared by the 1950s aside from an ill-fated revival in 1953. Captain America was reintroduced during the Silver Age of comics when he was revived from suspended animation by the superhero team the Avengers in The Avengers #4 (March 1964). Since then, Captain America has often led the team, as well as starring in his own series. Captain America was the first Marvel Comics character adapted into another medium with the release of the 1944 movie serial Captain America . Since then, the character has been featured in several other films and television series, including Chris Evans in 2011’s Captain America and The Avengers in 2012. The creation of Captain America In 1940, writer Joe Simon conceived the idea for Captain America and made a sketch of the character in costume. "I wrote the name 'Super American' at the bottom of the page," Simon said in his autobiography. "No, it didn't work. There were too many 'Supers' around. 'Captain America' had a good sound to it. There weren't a lot of captains in comics. It was as easy as that. The boy companion was simply named Bucky, after my friend Bucky Pierson, a star on our high school basketball team." Simon said Captain America was a consciously political creation; he and Jack Kirby were morally repulsed by the actions of Nazi Germany in the years leading up to the United States' involvement in World War II and felt war was inevitable: "The opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted to have our say too." Captain America Comics #1 — cover-dated March 1941 and on sale in December 1940, a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor but a full year into World War II — showed the protagonist punching Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the jaw; it sold nearly one million copies. While most readers responded favorably to the comic, some took objection. Simon noted, "When the first issue came out we got a lot of... threatening letters and hate mail. Some people really opposed what Cap stood for." Captain America immediately became the most prominent and enduring of that wave of superheroes introduced in American comic books prior to and during World War II With his sidekick Bucky, Captain America faced Nazis, Japanese, and other threats to wartime America and the Allies. Stanley Lieber, now better known by his pen name Stan Lee, contributed to the character in issue #3 in the filler text story "Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge," which introduced the character's use of his shield as a returning throwing weapon. Captain America soon became Timely's most popular character and even had a fan-club called the "Sentinels of Liberty." Biography of a hero from wartime to joining the Avengers 1940s Steve Rogers was born July 4, 1920, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, to Irish immigrant parents. His father died when Steve was only a child and his mother died of pneumonia while Steve was a teen. By early 1940, before America's entry into World War II, Rogers is a tall but scrawny fine arts student specializing in illustration. Disturbed by the rise of the Third Reich Rogers attempts to enlist, only to be rejected due to being in poor shape. U.S. Army General Chester Phillips, looking for test subjects, offers Rogers the chance to serve his country by taking part in a top- secret defence project — Operation: Rebirth , which seeks to develop a means of creating physically superior soldiers. Rogers volunteers for the research and, after a rigorous selection process, is chosen as the first human test subject for the Super- Soldier serum developed by the scientist "Dr. Josef Reinstein", later retroactively changed to a code name for the scientist Abraham Erskine. In the 2002 miniseries Truth, it was revealed that the Super-Soldier serum was first tested on African- American soldiers before being given to Rogers. That night, Operation: Rebirth is implemented and Rogers receives injections and oral doses of the Super-Soldier Serum. He is then exposed to a controlled burst of "Vita- Rays" that activate and stabilize the chemicals in his system. The process successfully alters his physiology almost instantly from its relatively frail form to the maximum of human efficiency, greatly enhancing his musculature, reflexes, agility, stamina and intelligence. Erskine declares Rogers to be the first of a new breed of man, a "nearly perfect human being." The process he underwent has varied from account to account. In the original 1941 story, he was injected with the formula. When the origin was retold in Tales of Suspense #63, the Comics Code Authority and its prohibitions on demonstrations of drug use were in force, and the injection was replaced with drinking a formula. In Captain America #109, the Vita-Rays were first introduced, although a dialogue comment preserved continuity by mentioning that he had also drunk the formula beforehand. The retelling of the story in Captain America #255, however, stated that all three were used in combination. In addition, the limited series, The Adventures of Captain America reveals that Rogers also underwent rigorous physical training in combat prior to his enhancement. After the physical transformation, a Nazi spy reveals himself and shoots Erskine before being overcome by the now enhanced Rogers. Because the scientist had committed crucial portions of the Super-Soldier formula to memory, duplicating it perfectly would be unlikely. The U.S. government, making the most of its one super-soldier and to hide all information about Operation: Rebirth and its failure, re-imagines him as a superhero who serves as both a counter-intelligence agent and a propaganda symbol to counter Nazi Germany’s head of terrorist operations, the Red Skull. To that end, Rogers is given a uniform modeled after the American flag (based on Rogers' own sketches) a bulletproof shield, a personal side arm, and the codename Captain America. He is also given a cover identity as a clumsy infantry private at Camp Lehigh in Virginia. Barely out of his teens himself, Rogers makes friends with the camp's teenage mascot, James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. Barnes accidentally learns of Rogers' dual identity and offers to keep the secret if he can become Captain America's sidekick. Rogers agrees and trains Barnes. Rogers meets President Roosevelt, who presents him with a new shield, forged from an alloy of steel and vibranium, fused by an unknown catalyst. The alloy is indestructible, yet the shield is light enough to use as a discus like weapon that can be angled to return to him. It proves so effective that Captain America forgoes the sidearm. Throughout World War II, Captain America and Bucky fight the Nazi menace both on their own and as members of the superhero team the Invaders. Captain America also battles a number of criminal menaces on American soil. In late April 1945, during the closing days of World War II, Captain America and Bucky try to stop the villainous Baron Zemo destroying an experimental drone plane. Zemo launches the plane with an armed explosive on it, with Rogers and Barnes in hot pursuit. They reach the plane just before it takes off, but when Bucky tries to defuse the bomb, it explodes in mid-air. The young man is believed killed, and Rogers is hurled into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. Neither body is found, and both are presumed dead. It is later revealed that neither character actually died. Late 1940s to 1950s Captain America continued to appear in comics for the next few years changing from World War II-era hero to trying to defeat the United States' newest enemy, Communism. The revival of the character in the mid-1950s is short-lived, and events during that time period are later retconned to show that multiple people operated as Captain America. These successors are listed as William Naslund and Jeffrey Mace. Jeffrey Mace was so devoted to emulating Captain America that he had had his appearance surgically altered to resemble Rogers. He came to be formally addressed as the "1950s Captain America". Furthermore, he also treated himself and a protege to an acquired Nazi copy of the Super-Soldier serum to become the new Captain America and Bucky, but were unaware of the necessary Vita-Ray component. As a result, the raw chemicals administered began to have serious detrimental effects on the pair's minds, rendering them both violently paranoid and regarding even innocent people as communist sympathizers during the height of the Red Scare of the 1950s (senator McCarthy would have been proud). After it became evident that the two were insane, they were captured and placed in indefinite cryogenic storage by the US Government until they could be cured of their mental illness.

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